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TIP 1
ADDITIONAL SOUNDS |
Guitarists sometimes
look for various modifications to the guitar
pickup connections to obtain some additional or
non-standard sounds.
For guitars like the Fender Stratocaster (S-S-S),
I propose an easy expansion of the sound palette
while maintaining the current connection layout
(with a 5-position switch), which is optimal and
works for the vast majority of needs.
This does not require any modification to the
guitar, only the use of a push-pull switch on
one of the potentiometers (e.g. Volume).
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When the
push-pull switch is pressed, the
engagement combinations are as standard. |
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When the
push-pull is pressed, the pickups engage
differently and provide additional
sounds. |
The presented "expansion" additionally provides
a very interesting sound option of
simultaneously switching on the bridge and neck
pickups, which gives a very wide sound: the
glassiness and dynamics of the bridge pickup are
combined with the depth and warmth of the neck
pickup.
This combination is obtained in positions 1 and
5 of the pickup switch.
The modification also allows simultaneous
switching on of all three pickups, to obtain a
maximum and full signal.
This combination is obtained in positions 2 and
4 of the pickup switch. |
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TIP 2
ALTERNATIVE COIL DISCONNECTION |
Almost 70 years ago,
P.A.F. humbuckers were invented. Not much later,
someone came up with the idea of disconnecting
the humbucker coils (to obtain a
quasi-single-coil sound) by shorting the winding
of one of them to ground.
And so the "brand standard" of connections was
born, which is still widely used today.
But anyone who studied physics (that from 190
years ago - about magnetism, induction,
self-induction, Fraday's law, Lenz's rule...)
can intuitively feel that shorting the pickup
coil in a variable magnetic field somehow
clashes with what they were taught in school.
Because: in a variable magnetic field (in the
pickup: from a locally vibrating magnetized
string), a variable voltage is induced in the
coil (the signal from the pickup). If we
short-circuit the pickup coil (e.g. to ground),
a self-induction current will flow in it, which
will counteract the changes in this field, and
therefore the vibrations of the strings.
Shorting one coil may therefore cause a certain
damping of the string vibrations, manifesting
itself in slightly less sustain, and in certain
cases also "dull sounds" (wolves) on individual
frets and strings.
This risk can be easily bypassed by using an
alternative coil disconnection system, in which
the coil winding is not short-circuited. |
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TIP 3
DETERMINATION OF THE
FREQUENCY CHARACTERISTIC |
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